I have been bonefish fishing a lot the last few years, but not on Andros. I long to get back to her shores and fish there again. I still see myself there standing on a flats boat somewhere along the fabled west coast of the Island. White sands and green mangroves abound, and the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds intoxicate the senses with primary colors. Before long, more subtle colors begin to emerge. The reds and blacks of the mangrove stems, the many shades of turquoise and azure formed by various water depths, the grey of a very distant thunder storm, the pink of wading Flamingos and the yellow of the constantly patrolling lemon sharks. The colors will all reflect on the mirrored side of the bonefish, the reason for coming.

Back at the lodge, someone is opening the screened windows in my room, letting fresh ocean breezes wisp through all day. On the dock, Iyke, our chef, is haggling with a local fisherman for a rather large grouper that will be our dinner tonight. He has already secured fresh conch for hot fritters that await when all the anglers return from fishing. Liz Bain, the lodge manager checks the clock, she will be waiting for each anglers return, standing on the dock as if the boys out on the range have been gone to long, when you see her from the boat standing there you just know this person is overly concerned with your well being and good time.

A young Bahamian guide, perhaps named Captain Al or Captain Leslie, with eyes like an osprey takes the push pole onto the platform and begins sneaking the skiff through the shallowest of water. When the bottom of the boat drags the mud I feel it, and also know that the bones will be cruising with their backs sticking up here. The bonefish know they are safe from sharks, and I know I am safe from being found by anyone for the next eight hours.

The tide is moving out in a hurry, and as the flats skiff nears the edge of the mangroves, the guide tells me to listen close. Sure enough, in the tide flooded mangroves one can hear hundreds, perhaps thousands of bonefish thrashing their way back to the open flats, back to the deeper water. If they don’t make it soon the tide will bottom them out, and the local osprey will surely find the beached fish. Almost all of them do make it out though. We station the boat at one of the creek mouths and cast at only the biggest bonefish as they file out of the mangroves and onto the flat one after the other. For the better part of two and a half hours the fly rod is bent and the drag is tested over and over.
My Bahamian captain doesn’t need to tell me when it’s time to go. I can see where the sun is, the tide is fully turned and the fish are gone. The only thing left is the hour run home. A high speed run through this frontier, another chance to take in all the colors, a chance to reflect on my day and my life.

I arrive back at the lodge right on time. One of my fishing friends is already at the dock. He offers me a hand from boat to dock, and with the other hand he offers me an ice cold Kalik, the Bahamian pilsner that cools the hottest island days. I can smell blackened grouper cooking somewhere on the lodge grounds. I take my weary body, clothes, beer and all, into an ice cold shower where I spend the next ten minutes sipping Kalik, shaking the heat and rejuvenating for a big night of story swapping, fine dinning, and constant laughter.

Mangrove Cay has become the bonefish Nirvana of my minds eye. A place I feel I’m coming home to, more than visiting. Liz, Al, Iyke, my friends the bonefish, everything is perfectly in it’s place on this corner of Andros Island, once you’ve been there you will never be the same, for the want of going back.